Kid Cudi Reveals Travis Scott Influenced Him To Be More Lyrical On ‘Man On The Moon III’

Kid Cudi

“I really wanted to elevate my whole s### on that front on this project.”

Scott “Kid Cudi” Mescudi is finally returning with a new official solo LP. Fans of the Cleveland rhymer have waited ten years for the third installment in the Man On The Moon album series. Man On The Moon III: The Chosen is now ready for release.

The latest music project from Cudi is scheduled to arrive on DSPs this Friday, December 11 via Republic Records. An official tracklist shows Phoebe Bridgers, Trippie Redd, Skepta, and the late Pop Smoke as guest collaborators for MOTM3.

There is one very noticeable name missing from the tracklist – Travis Scott. Earlier this year, Scott and Mescudi teamed up as The Scotts duo to present “The Scotts” single. Cudi earned his first career #1 on the Hot 100 chart with that song.

While Travis is not a credited feature on MOTM3, he apparently played a role in the creative direction of the album. Cudi recently spoke with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe about his upcoming body of work, and his 28-year-old musical partner was mentioned during the interview.

“Before I started working on this s### I was like, ‘My next s###’s gotta be bars.’ I knew that,” said Cudi. “I just remember Travis saying something to me about my raps. He was just like, ‘Your raps, man. I love when you rap.’ I kept that in mind. I was like, ‘Okay, Travis is saying my raps are good. That must be something that the kids like. I’ll keep that in mind.”

The 36-year-old rapper/singer added, “I just wanted to give [Scott] exactly what he loved about Kid Cudi. And for him, it’s bars. But I felt like, in Hip Hop, I’m slept on as a rapper, as a lyricist. I really wanted to elevate my whole s### on that front on this project. And I did that with the rapping and the singing. Everything is kind of evolved.”

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Besides releasing new tunes, Cudi is also adding more entries to his IMDb page. He is said to be developing a movie version of Brandon Taylor’s semi-autobiographical novel Real Life with Mescudi both producing the film and taking on a starring role. 

The news about Real Life potentially heading to the screen comes after Kid Cudi was also announced as an executive producer and actor for director Ti West’s forthcoming X horror flick. Prior to that, he was part of the main cast for the HBO drama series We Are Who We Are.

A new Netflix adult animated music series, tentatively titled Entergalactic, has been discussed over the last two years as well. Mescudi, Black-ish creator Kenya Barris, and How To Make It In America creator Ian Edelman were set to produce that program.